THESIS ONE

The Humor of IncongruityIn the Digital Experience

Michael Silber | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

1. Hypothesis

This thesis presents the hypothesis that humor emerges from the incongruities of digital experience.

Humor in this form celebrates juxtapositions, boundary confusion and advocates for connectivity between things that are not normally considered relatable.

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

2. Abstract

The digital experience describes a range of information delivery systems, which differ from our experience in the classic universe. In the screen world, we are presented with incongruent fragments of written, verbal, and visual information, often in disjointed rapid succession.

As our minds seek to organize this information, these incongruent fragments can become fused in nonsensical absurd ways.

The Incongruity-Resolution Theory of Humor (I-R) argues that humor happens whenever an incongruity occurs that is subsequently resolved. The digital experience creates a new form of incongruity, which can therefore present a new source of humor.

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

3. Humor Theories and Philosophy of Humor

A. Incongruity Ambiguity, logical impossibility, irrelevance, and inappropriateness [leading approach- Kant, Kierkegaard, [Aristotle] Suls (1972), Wyer and Collins, Michael Apter, Attardo, Raskin, Minsky.

B. Superiority Aggressive supremacy. [Thomas Hobbes, Plato, Aristotle]

C. Relief Release or save energy generated by repression. [Freud, Herbert Spencer]

D. Play An extension of “animal play” behavior.

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

Philosophy

• Aristotle

• Boyle, Charles

• Descartes, René. (1649/1987). Les Passions de L’ame. [The Passions of the Soul] Paris. Excerpts in Morreall

• Freud, Sigmund (1928). “Humor.” International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 9, pp. 1-6.

• (1905/1960). Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. Trans. J. Strachey. New York: W. W. Norton. (Orig. published 1905).

• Bateson, Gregory (2000). Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

• Kant, Immanuel. (1951). Critique of Judgment. J. H. Bernard, Trans. New York: Hafner.

• Lock, John

• Geulen, Eva, 2006, The End of Art. Readings in a Rumor after Hegel, trans. J. McFarland. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

• Martin, Rod A. (2007). The Psychology Of Humour: An Integrative Approach. London, UK: Elsevier Academic Press.

Schopenhauer, Arthur (1818). The World as Will and Representation.

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

4. Evolutionary Basis for Humor–Cognitive/Psychological

• Hurley, Dennett, Adams. Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind.

• Malone. The Guardian of All Things: The Epic Story of Human Memory.

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

5. History of Humor Differences Commonalities and Evolution

-Theater/Shakespeare

-Vaudeville

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

6. Humor: Mass Media (movies, radio, tv, podcasts) –Cultural Significance/Social Change

–Regionalism/Globalism

Film/Standup/Sitcom...

• Chaplin

• Marx Brothers

• Bob Hope

• Woody Allen

• Arnold Schwarzenegger

• Rodney Dangerfield

• George Carlin

• Cosby

• Sienfeld/Larry David

• Louis CK

• Marc Maron

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein

7. Humor and the Digital Experience

• Visual Perception

• Cognition/Processing

• Media as personal experience, tailored to the individual

• Laughing alone?

• Futurist Thinking - Augmented Reality/Posthumanism

• Implications

–Applications/ Project Ideas

Michael Silber | Directed Research | Professor Tom Klinkowstein